Kristallnacht: Prologue

I awoke to the sound of a thousand delicate pieces of something beautiful falling, falling… I didn’t know quite what it was; I just knew it was beautiful. Perhaps it was bells? Or maybe somewhere, a rabbi knocked a precious menorah to the ground. But no—this sound was louder, greater, more powerful—more terrifying. It was the sound of brokenness. With its fall, a hundred voices cried, prophecying, “All of these lands are changed forever…our souls have been shattered,”1

I heard the sound of footsteps. Mother came running in, only draped in a night robe. The looko of a hunted deer filled her face as she raced towards me in open arms and a hushed, firm voice, “Down,” I did not think to disobey.2

So there we crouched, the farthest away from the window, in the darkest corner o fmy room. Just outside, there were voices, Gentile voices laughing and joking. But it was not gay laughter; it was sick laughter, perverse and evil—the kind that delighted in death. I knew it right away. Then there was a light. I could tell they had stopped; I could feel their eyes, looking to our window—their diamond blue eyes. 3

Suddenly, it shattered. 4

The window crumpled inward as though it were a ball of clear paper. Shattered glass flew across the room, inches away from our faces. I tried to scream, but mother’s hold was tight over my mouth. In the distance, the reflections of flames rose higher and higher. And there was that laugh again—the laugh of evil delight. Fear shivered through my spine, yet their voices died away. A silent night chill swept through the room’s now empty window, and I could almost hear the death like crying voices, reminding me, “These lands will never be the same…they have been shattered,” 5

Once she was sure that all was still, Mother took her hand away from my mouth. Even though there was nothing, Mother’s voice was hardly above a whisper, her eyes just as wide, “Rifka”, her eyes watered on the verge of tears. 6

“Mother,” I echoed softly, my lip beginning to tremble by accident, “What—is happening? Is the world dying?”7

Mother jumped slightly. Perhaps sit was her surprise at my question. Or perhaps it was her fear of those Gentile men. Shaking her head ever so slowly, Mother mouthed, “God’s people are always abused by man,” she swallowed, closing her large, vessel pained eyes, “Tonight, these men shattered the glass—the windows, the gate ways, the doors, the benches—it is their final words to us: Israel cannot be here,” Turning away from me, I watched her as she took in deep breaths, consoling herself, “It is just the glasss…just the glass…” But I knew it was more than glass. 8

It was that night that I knew something had gone terribly wrong in the world, and that I would never see it come together again. Maybe, I asked mother, the world was broken? Just like those windows of glass, scattered across my room, and many others’? If this was the brokenness, then could the glass be fixed? Was there a tape that could stretch across these lands, and unite us—Gentile and Israeli? Or, I gulped, was the glass shattered forever? More importantly, what happened once the glass shattered, and the horrid night—they called it the Kristallnacht—had brought forth a new day?9